Live spatial audio performance using Meyer Sound’s Constellation. An evening-length journey through spatial audio history where music becomes a physical experience.
- Year: 2022
- Venue: National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY
The Event
On June 11, 2022, I curated and performed Music in the Constellation at National Sawdust in Brooklyn as part of The Future Is… Festival. The event sold out — standing room only.
This wasn’t a typical concert. It was an educational journey through 70 years of spatial audio, from monophonic works to periphonic ambisonics, performed on Meyer Sound’s Constellation system.
The concept: As we increase the number of speakers, we unlock new creative opportunities for composers. Each configuration — mono, stereo, quadraphonic, 8-channel ring, full ambisonics — offers unique compositional advantages that can’t be replicated in other formats.
The audience sat in the center of the room, surrounded by speakers mounted at multiple heights and angles. I performed live works and presented rarely-heard multichannel masterpieces in their original formats — some for the first time in decades.
What People Are Saying
“Zappa and Stockhausen like you’ve never heard before… Over one hundred audio speakers will bathe the audience.” — Classical Music Communications
“With Constellation and Spacemap, National Sawdust now offers an almost unlimited palette for sonic creativity, experimentation and inspiration.” — Paola Prestini, Co-founder and Artistic Director, National Sawdust
A Journey Through Channel Counts
1 Speaker: Monophonic
Greg Wilder — Atlas (2022)
Creative advantages of spatializing a single-point sound source:
- Single sound source, but composer controls exactly where attention goes in 3D space
- No “front” or “back” — pure spatial abstraction
- “Found sound” sources become difficult to identify, allowing immediate use as raw musical material
- The Constellation system allows this mono source to be placed anywhere in the room and moved dynamically
2 Speakers: Stereo
Frank Zappa — While You Were Art II (1985) Kui Dong — Flying Apples (1995)
Creative advantages of stereo imaging:
- Recreates natural spatial cues (timing, volume differences) missing in mono
- Feels fairly complete as the brain fills in missing contextual information
- Creates a reasonably natural sense of an original sonic experience
Note of interest: Zappa spent $365,000 (1985 dollars) upgrading his Synclavier to record stereo audio — $40,000 per megabyte of RAM. The final system had 24MB of RAM, allowing him to painstakingly enter this work note-by-note when live musicians had difficulty playing it accurately.
Note on presentation: For Flying Apples, the two-channel work was allowed to reverberate throughout the entire immersive audio dome, creating an incredibly different effect than just two single points of origin.
4 Speakers: Quadraphonic
Karlheinz Stockhausen — Gesang der Jünglinge (1955)
Creative advantages of expanding stereo to quad:
- Dramatically increases information comprehension (the cocktail-party effect)
- Allows delivery of more complex, dense musical textures
- Maintains clarity through spatial separation
Historical significance: At age 27, Stockhausen methodically orchestrated this masterpiece across four corners of the concert hall. It’s widely known in stereo but rarely heard in its original multichannel format — as the composer conceived it nearly 70 years ago.
8 Speakers: Ring Configuration
Wolfgang Mitterer — Hallo, Mr. Bruckner (2009)
Creative advantages of sounds living in an 8-channel ring:
- Doubles the complexity and sonic density that is possible
- Sounds maintain more of their original identity in stereo pairs
- Creates cleaner compositional effects through spatial contrast
Mitterer’s approach: A unique language of extremes — modern sounds battle time-stretched orchestral recordings. The 8-channel ring allows these disparate elements to coexist with clarity.
Full System: Immersive Ambisonics
Allan Schindler — Vivre (2008) Jean-Philippe Rameau (arr. Greg Wilder) — Zaïs: Overture (1748/2022)
Creative advantages of full immersive ambisonics:
- Sounds can be placed anywhere in 3D space (including height)
- Complete 360° context is maintained as sounds move
- No more gravity, no more up/down, no more front/back
- Physical assumptions are completely stripped away
Schindler’s vision: “A 360-degree horizontal and vertical sound field helps to clarify motion and make it more transparent. Removing channels significantly reduces the experience — like looking at a photograph of a sculpture instead of walking around it.”
Rameau arrangement: My arrangement (2022) of Rameau’s 1748 overture from Zaïs reimagines this Baroque masterpiece for the full Constellation system, allowing 18th-century orchestral gestures to dance through 21st-century immersive space.
The Technology
My performance setup:
- MOTU 24Ao USB / AVB / iOS Interface
- RME Fireface UFX Interface
- Real-time spatial audio via SpatGRIS sound spatialization software
- Direct integration with Constellation system via D-Mitri platform
The Meyer Sound Constellation System at National Sawdust comprises 86 small, full-range loudspeakers plus 16 compact subwoofers that extend the reverberation envelope to the lowest bass frequencies. Sixteen miniature microphones provide ambient sensing, sending signals to a D-Mitri digital audio platform that includes a dedicated DVRAS module for providing the desired room acoustic. Meyer Sound Spacemap Go enables real-time spatial audio control.
The Performance Philosophy
By moving sounds through the room in choreographed patterns, I created the sensation of music as a physical presence — something you could almost reach out and touch.
Some sounds circled the audience slowly. Others darted across the room. Still others seemed to hover in place, suspended in mid-air. The Constellation system’s ability to extend and reshape the room’s reverberation meant each piece could exist in its own ideal acoustic environment — from the dry clarity of a classroom to the expansive resonance of a cathedral.
Why this matters now: In the early 20th century, Bartók and Varèse brought sonic texture to the forefront. Today we stand at the threshold of an unexplored creative landscape. With the growing availability of immersive audio systems — and especially through virtual reality — we have new opportunities for spatial composition that actually have potential for wide-ranging distribution.
Event Details
- Date: June 11, 2022
- Venue: National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY
- Festival: The Future Is… Festival (June 7–16, 2022)
- Status: Sold out (standing room only)
- Presented by: National Sawdust and Open G Records
- Sound system: Meyer Sound Constellation (86 loudspeakers + 16 subwoofers)
Program
- Greg Wilder — Atlas (2022)
- Frank Zappa — While You Were Art II (1985)
- Kui Dong — Flying Apples (1995)
- Karlheinz Stockhausen — Gesang der Jünglinge (1955)
- Wolfgang Mitterer — Hallo, Mr. Bruckner (2009)
- Allan Schindler — Vivre (2008)
- Jean-Philippe Rameau (arr. Greg Wilder) — Zaïs: Overture (1748/2022)
Credits
- Curator/Performer: Greg Wilder
- Sound Engineer: Garth MacAleavey
- Venue: National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY
- Sound System: Meyer Sound Constellation with Spacemap Go
- Presented by: National Sawdust and Open G Records (Chris Grymes)
- Festival: The Future Is… Festival